Dana Point

Blue whales are the largest animals that have ever lived. Bigger than any dinosaur. The size of a Boeing 737. A single one of them can weigh as much as a fully loaded semi truck, and the heart that pumps through that body is roughly the size of a small car. For most people, the…

Every year, May does something to the water off Dana Point. The gray whales that we have been watching all winter are heading north toward Alaska, the dolphins are running in pods that look more like rivers, and somewhere off the edge of the continental shelf, the largest animals that have ever lived on this…

Every weekend from the deck of the Dana Pride, we watch the same thing happen. A kid who was quietly scrolling on a phone in the harbor parking lot spots a spout on the horizon, and five minutes later they are pressed against the rail shouting at their parents to come look. That moment is…

Every week, someone calls the wharf and asks us the same question in a slightly different way. “Will I get seasick?” “Do people throw up?” “My wife gets car sick on a straight highway. Can she handle a whale watching trip?” Fair questions. Nobody wants to spend $50 and three hours hanging over a rail,…

If you search “whale watching Orange County,” you’ll get a dozen results telling you roughly the same thing: there are whales off the coast, and you should go see them. But if you’re actually trying to figure out where to go and what you’ll see, those results don’t help much. We’ve been running whale watching…

You hear them before you see them. That loud, rhythmic barking echoing across Dana Point Harbor is the unmistakable sound of California sea lions, and around here, it’s as constant as the Pacific itself. Walk down to Dana Wharf on any given morning, and you’ll spot them piled on the inner jetty rocks, draped over…

When the Dana Wharf sportboats head offshore in the summer and fall, every set of eyes on the boat—from the captain in the wheelhouse to the anglers on the bow—is scanning the deep blue horizon for one specific thing. A floating piece of detached kelp. In the vast, featureless expanse of the open…

You can have the most expensive rod and reel on the boat, but if your live bait is spinning in circles or dies the second it hits the water, the fish are going to swim right past it. When you fish with Dana Wharf Sportfishing, our bait tanks are loaded with fresh, lively…

If you fish Southern California year-round, you know that the Pacific Ocean has moods. During the winter months, the water is cold, the days are short, and the strategy is all about going deep. Winter fishing at Dana Wharf Sportfishing is dominated by heavy lead, dropping bait to the bottom, and pulling up…

When you drop your line down to the rocky reefs off the coast of Southern California, you never quite know what’s going to bite. While many anglers have their hearts set on a giant Lingcod or a colorful California Sheephead, there is one fish that often steals the show: the Ocean Whitefish. Don’t…